Current:Home > MarketsArguments to free FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried get rough reception from federal appeals panel-LoTradeCoin
Arguments to free FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried get rough reception from federal appeals panel
View Date:2025-01-18 13:02:11
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court in Manhattan seemed unreceptive Tuesday to arguments that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried should be released on bail before his trial starts in two weeks so he can better prepare for trial.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in Manhattan, and all three judges were dismissive of his lawyer’s claims that the First Amendment protects him from a judge’s conclusion that his actions while confined to his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California, for eight months violated the conditions of his $250 million bail.
Bankman-Fried, 31, was extradited to the United States last December from the Bahamas to face charges that he stole billions of dollars in FTX customer deposits, spending tens of millions on his businesses, speculative investments, charitable donations and campaign contributions meant to influence cryptocurrency regulation in Washington.
Bankman-Fried, who has pleaded not guilty, was jailed Aug. 11. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan concluded he had tried to influence witnesses against him, most recently by showing a journalist the private writings of a former girlfriend who served as CEO of Alameda Research — Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency trading hedge fund — before FTX collapsed last November.
Kaplan said at a recent hearing that the diary-like writings by Caroline Ellison were of the kind that a former romantic partner was unlikely to share with anyone “except to hurt, discredit, and frighten the subject of the material.”
Bankman-Fried’s lawyer, Mark Cohen, told the 2nd Circuit to overturn the revocation of bail so he can properly prepare for a trial set to start with jury selection on Oct. 3. He said documents in the case that his client can no longer access are so voluminous that they would be as tall as three skyscrapers if they were printed out in a single stack.
“You can’t prepare for trial this way, your honor, you just can’t,” Cohen said.
Circuit Judge William J. Nardini was particularly blunt in his assessment of Bankman-Fried’s prospects for release, saying that he should have considered his need to study documents in his case before taking actions that Kaplan concluded were designed to intimidate or influence witnesses.
“But, like anyone else, if it is true that he has intimidated witnesses, at a certain point, he makes his own bed and he sleeps in it,” Nardini said.
Circuit Judge Denny Chin asked if there was a First Amendment right “to influence or discredit a witness who may testify against you. Is there?”
“No, your honor, there isn’t,” Cohen responded.
Circuit Judge John M. Walker Jr. said Kaplan was in the best position to decide whether Bankman-Fried had intent to influence or intimidate witnesses and the 2nd Circuit must “afford tremendous and probably the greatest amount of deference” to his rulings.
The 2nd Circuit did not immediately rule.
___
For more AP coverage of Sam Bankman-Fried: https://apnews.com/hub/sam-bankman-fried
veryGood! (7147)
Related
- Week 10 fantasy football rankings: PPR, half-PPR and standard leagues
- From a Raft in the Grand Canyon, the West’s Shifting Water Woes Come Into View
- A ‘Polluter Pays’ Tax in Infrastructure Plan Could Jump-Start Languishing Cleanups at Superfund Sites
- Warming Trends: Couples Disconnected in Their Climate Concerns Can Learn About Global Warming Over 200 Years or in 18 Holes
- American Idol’s Triston Harper, 16, Expecting a Baby With Wife Paris Reed
- Brody Jenner and Tia Blanco Are Engaged 5 Months After Announcing Pregnancy
- A Watershed Moment: How Boston’s Charles River Went From Polluted to Pristine
- H&R Block and other tax-prep firms shared consumer data with Meta, lawmakers say
- Horoscopes Today, November 13, 2024
- Miss a credit card payment? Federal regulators want to put new limits on late fees
Ranking
- How to protect your Social Security number from the Dark Web
- How the pandemic changed the rules of personal finance
- Two U.S. Oil Companies Join Their European Counterparts in Making Net-Zero Pledges
- Too Much Sun Degrades Coatings That Keep Pipes From Corroding, Risking Leaks, Spills and Explosions
- Watch as massive amount of crabs scamper across Australian island: 'It's quite weird'
- The return of Chinese tourism?
- UN Report: Despite Falling Energy Demand, Governments Set on Increasing Fossil Fuel Production
- This drinks festival doesn't have alcohol. That's why hundreds of people came
Recommendation
-
Celtics' Jaylen Brown calls Bucks' Giannis Antetokounmpo a 'child' over fake handshake
-
Marc Anthony and Wife Nadia Ferreira Welcome First Baby Together Just in Time for Father's Day
-
Friends Actor Paxton Whitehead Dead at 85
-
When Will Renewables Pass Coal? Sooner Than Anyone Thought
-
Horoscopes Today, November 12, 2024
-
The Fed has been raising interest rates. Why then are savings interest rates low?
-
How much prison time could Trump face if convicted on Espionage Act charges? Recent cases shed light
-
Could Migration Help Ease The World's Population Challenges?